U.S.
government studies consistently find that young whites use marijuana at
higher rates than young blacks or Latinos. Yet, in large cities and
counties throughout the United States, young blacks and Latinos are arrested
and jailed for marijuana possession at much higher rates than young whites.

In New York, Chicago, and
Los Angeles, police arrest blacks for marijuana possession at seven times
the rate of whites. Usually, the people arrested were not
smoking in public. Police typically found the small amount of marijuana when
they stopped, frisked, and searched the young people, often in their own
neighborhoods.